Source: New York Post
A stack of rare books worth millions of dollars was finally returned to the heirs of New York City royalty Monday — decades after they were snatched by a mysterious bookworm, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said. The 17 historic works — valued at nearly $3 million — once belonged to socialites John Hay Whitney and his second wife, philanthropist Betsey Cushing Whitney, before they were reported missing from Whitney’s estate on Long Island in 1989. It would take nearly 40 years for the tomes — which included love letters from British poet John Keats and a signed copy of James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” — to suddenly pop up when a man tried pawning them off to two Manhattan book-sellers in January 2025.
